January 31

1606 –  4 conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guy Fawkes are executed for treason by being hanged, drawn and quartered.

1814 – Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata in present day Argentina.

1846 – After a series of reciprocal attacks termed the the ‘Milwaukee Bridge War’, due to differences on how a damaged bridge over the Milwaukee River would be repaired, the towns of Juneautown and Kilbourntown on opposite sides of the river, unify to create the City of Milwaukee.

1862 – Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius A, while testing an 18.5 inch refractor telescope for the Dearborn Observatory at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

1865 – The United States Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery and submits it to the states for ratification.

1944 – American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese occupied Marshall Islands.
During the Anzio campaign, the 1st Ranger Battalion is destroyed behind enemy lines, with only 6 out of 767 soldiers escaping being killed, or captured, in battle at Cisterna, Italy.

1945 – US Army Private Eddie Slovik is executed for desertion, the first such execution of an American soldier since the Civil War.

1950 – President Truman authorizes the development of thermonuclear weapons.

1957 – Over Pacoima, California,  8 people; the pilot of the fighter, the 4 crew members on the airliner and 3 students on a school playground where parts of the airliner crashed into, are killed following the mid air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet.

1968 – During the Tet Offensive, Viet Cong guerrillas attack the United States embassy in Saigon, killing 5 embassy personnel before being killed.

1971 – Apollo 14 Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon, to perform the exploration of the aborted Apollo 13 mission the previous year.

1991 – Coalition ground forces begin the final assault to retake Khafji, Saudi Arabia from occupying Iraqi Army troops.

2000 – Alaska Airlines Flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, California, killing all 88 passengers and crew aboard.

2001 – In the Netherlands, a Scottish court convicts Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and acquits another Libyan citizen for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

2020 – The United Kingdom officially exits membership within the European Union